Industry standard studio amps!

[Aaron]

Dear Bass players and studio engineers!

I have been building a home studio and as a guitarist and drummer mainly, I have just started to pick up bass, I know very little about bass amplification! I am after 'the industry standard/best selling' bass amp, that any bass player would be more than happy to play through for nearly any style! The equivalent of the Fender hot rod deluxe for bass if you will.

I have heard the Ampeg B15 is very popular for professional studios, but at £2,700 it's a bit (completely) out of my budget! Under £1000 (new or second hand) would be preferable!

Thanks everyone
Aaron

[discreet]

You will no doubt get a lot of opinions about this. Mine is that one of the Markbass combos would do it for you. Or if you really want Ampeg, then the PF350 with a Portaflex cab may be the thing.

[url="http://www.markbass.it/product_detail.php?id=39"]http://www.markbass.it/product_detail.php?id=39[/url]
[url="http://www.ampeg.com/products/portaflex/"]http://www.ampeg.com...ucts/portaflex/[/url]

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

Edited September 22, 2013 by discreet

[Aaron]

Markbass is looking good, thanks for the links and the welcome discreet!

Aaron

[winterfire666]

check out the Kemper profiling amp, totaly unique piece of kit and potentially can dail in any amp with exceptional results (tube or solid state).
it works on bass /guitar and i even have some studio gear profiled for vocals too.
they dont come up very often but are just under 1k used (around £1200 new and worth every penny)
these are rapidly becoming standard in a lot of professional studios.
i have a/b'd a B15 directly with a kemper profile of the same settings and there really is no telling them apart.
plus there is a rapidly growing user library of profiles online (for free!)
[url="http://www.kemper-amps.com/home"]http://www.kemper-amps.com/home[/url]

some good a/b demos here with guitar but it works just as well with bass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7GexV_TF0

Edited September 22, 2013 by winterfire666

[tayste_2000]

Really it's the B-15 which for a 70s model can be had around the £1500 mark but even then you're going to struggle to use it in a lot of places.

You'd be better looking at high end di boxes, first always have a radial jdi or j48 then you want something like a gas cooker, avalon u5, reddi, td-100 (not that heavily accepted but one hell of a tone) or evil twin.

Take it from someone who owns a b-15 and a custom 4w Matamp valve rig designed for recording my most used item is always the jdi.

If you do still want an amp I may be parting with my 4w Matamp rig

[Kiwi]

[quote name='Aaron' timestamp='1379871134' post='2217614']
Dear Bass players and studio engineers!

I have been building a home studio and as a guitarist and drummer mainly, I have just started to pick up bass, I know very little about bass amplification! I am after 'the industry standard/best selling' bass amp, that any bass player would be more than happy to play through for nearly any style! The equivalent of the Fender hot rod deluxe for bass if you will.

I have heard the Ampeg B15 is very popular for professional studios, but at £2,700 it's a bit (completely) out of my budget! Under £1000 (new or second hand) would be preferable!
[/quote]

Fender Twin Delux for guitar, or Marshall JCM800

Bass is normally DI'd into the recording desk for messing about with later. Although the [url="http://www.avalondesign.com/vt737sp.html"]Avalon VT737SP[/url] is a industry standard for DI preamp for bass as well as vocals but they don't come cheap.

[Aaron]

I'm currently using a mixing desk (Allen&heath) with inbuilt line inputs and have plugged basses directly into it before for recording with 'reasonable but bland' results. Would a DI Box really give me any advantage?

[Kiwi]

You won't need to set up and record an amp. DI boxes are a bit cheaper too. Radial JDI, SansAmp, Avalon U5, Phil Jones BassBuddy etc. etc. If the amp is just used for monitoring in a live recording situation, the bassist can bring their own. You can still record through a DI.

Also, a valve based DI/pre will fatten things up a bit. More lower mids and softer, more compressed highs. It'll make the bass sound ear friendly with less work.

[Kiwi]

[url="http://tweakheadz.com/microphone-preamps/"]http://tweakheadz.com/microphone-preamps/[/url]

Just found this, in case its useful.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the advice Kiwi, will this really sound as good/better as a good quality amp recorded with a decent mic? Or is mixing both worthwhile?

The article is very good though thankyou!

Edited September 22, 2013 by Aaron

[Kiwi]

A good engineer should be able to achieve satisfying results with either method. It's more a question of how much faffing about you want to do. People buy high end gear to save them time. It doesn't mean decent results can't be achieved with cheaper equipment if you have the time and a willingness to learn.

Some engineers use both methods and mic the amp from a distance to capture a little ambience. Do you need to do a little more research on what recording approaches are appropriate for the music and end result you are seeking?

[stingrayPete1977]

I can't remember the last time I used an amp in the studio, bass pod about 12 years ago, various di's into a myriad of computer based emulators ever since. Every engineer that has been doing it a while has always loved a stingray into the desk with the eq on the bass set flat leaving them infinite final mixes to play with

[paul_5]

I record all my bass tracks (and quite a few of other people's) DI'ed through a DHA VT1 EQ. It's lovely at fattening up the bottom end, and can give a LOT of crunch if you need it, without losing low frequencies. Not everyone's first choice, as technically it's an overdrive pedal, but it's got loads of clean boost and a whisper quiet DI output. Way under your budget too.

[Kiwi]

I forgot to mention that member 51m0n is also an experienced engineer. Hopefully he might pop along and chip in too. If not, drop him a PM.

[Aaron]

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1379875866' post='2217716']
A good engineer should be able to achieve satisfying results with either method. It's more a question of how much faffing about you want to do. People buy high end gear to save them time. It doesn't mean decent results can't be achieved with cheaper equipment if you have the time and a willingness to learn.

Some engineers use both methods and mic the amp from a distance to capture a little ambience. Do you need to do a little more research on what recording approaches are appropriate for the music and end result you are seeking?
[size=4][/quote][/size]

I think I do need to do a little more research. I am relatively new to recording, but am pretty happy with my recordings guitar and drum wise but haven't got the results I'm after bass wise: hence the question!

[krysh]

the kemper is great for both bass and guitar, but well, if you don't need an amp for band rehearsals in the studio, I'd also suggest a decent preamp preferably with tubes. these start used around 500€ (alembic. ampeg, etc.)
if you want something great go the custom route like I did:

or get a demeter. usually miking a bassamp/cab is much more difficult to handle for a beginner in basstonerecording

[basshead56]

I've always liked the Ampeg SVTDI box's tone. Rare as rocking horse s***t but always gives good results.

I'd have one in a heartbeat!

I've recorded using my VT Deluxe with good results too. No noise, plenty of bottom end and a touch of SVT overdrive.
Poifect! Plus some of the factory settings on there will give you some of those older fliptop Ampeg sounds

[WinterMute]

Bass Pod XT pro, always get great results from that either as player or engineer, slap a DI down too and you can always use the Pod to re-amp later, or even run a real amp.

[51m0n]

How long is a piece of string?

Styles will vary what the best choice is for amps and cabs, and there will be endless debate for ever on the topic on this forum.

However for DIs you'd have to go a long way to beat the REDDI, its a thing of great beauty indeed....

[alexclaber]

That Kemper looks very clever. The Markbass Multiamp I tried at the bash on Saturday was remarkably good too. However, with most bass players being fairly simple creatures I don't think you can go wrong with a nice valve preamp or class A discrete like the Avalon U5. The other thing to consider is if you need loud monitoring for tracking drums and bass live or whether it'll be all be via headphones.

[dan670844]

Not many studios record live bass i.e through an amp these days. A quality set of preamps usually does the trick, or a decent di check out the Reddi valve Di its a must for a studio for guitars or bass its killer as its not a pretend valve on front of a solid state stage thing. Really warms up and its very dynamic which is the thing bassists usually complain about, they need to express themselves!!
If you want to record a live bass amp, i guess you are thinking valve as anything solidstate you can do with a good preamp/ reamp later when they have gone.... it supprising the eq ideas of some dudes, you just need to capture you can mess about later!!!!
you are looking at B15 marshall 2061x or try the Ashdown LB30 or ctm30 stunning warm valve tones at moderate to low volumes. The lb30 is great for reamping as its dead quiet no hiss or hum. But unless you really have sorted the room acoustics preamp it, and just spend the money on good monitoring equipment so the musician can hear what he/she is doing. Miccing up bass cabs in not acoustically perfect rooms without great isolation and damping is asking for trouble!!!!

[Lozz196]

Yes, the Reddi is a quality piece of gear, great sounds. Think there`s one up for grabs on here at present too.

[Aaron]

Reddi seems a good option! I've got a custom built ABY box so DI and use an amp for monitoring sounds the way forward! Thanks everyone for your advice!

Might see if I can borrow a few DI's off mates, £650 seems a lot for a DI box... Will give a few a try first I think...

Thanks again
Aaron

[lozbass]

I'd have a very serious look at a Millennia TD-1 - beautiful DI with the benefit of tube or SS routing and two bands of mastering grade EQ. It also has a re-amp feature (could be very useful). Used in a lot of US studios for bass (indeed a favourite, and for me, has a good edge over the Avalon U5) but excellent for vocals and other instruments too. Around £1600 new in the UK but occassionally appear for around £1k used. Could be a very good investment all round.

[EBS_freak]

Invest in a decent DI, or even better, a decent mic pre/channel strip that you can use for a whole load of things.

Alot of bass players will bring their own amp if they give a crap. Having said that, the DI on an amp is unlikely to be as good as a dedicated DI... and if you want to mic a cab, that opens up a whole argument and expense about mics.

There's always the option of reamping anyway (record direct then feed that back through an amp on playback and recording the amp's output). For that, these are quite cool - [url="http://www.orchid-electronics.co.uk/Amp_Interface.htm"]http://www.orchid-electronics.co.uk/Amp_Interface.htm[/url]

I would suggest against something like a B15. It was the go to amp... but they just aren't versatile enough to cope with the wide style of bass playing nowadays.